JP2008129884A - Information retrieval system, its method, and broadcast receiver used therefor - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an information retrieval system allowing a viewer to extremely easily obtain related information widely from a Web site on the Internet concerning information other than those prepared by a broadcast station. <P>SOLUTION: The system includes: a broadcast receiver 100 having a receiving part 20 for receiving TV broadcast and a feature value extracting part 19 for extracting a feature image from the received video; an image retrieval server 200 having a database 23 for previously storing a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image, and an information processing part 22 for comparing the feature value transmitted from the broadcast receiver 100 with the sample image, so as to determine the keyword; and a search engine 300 for searching the information related to the keyword which is transmitted from the image retrieval server 200. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an information search system and method, and a broadcast receiver used therefor, and more particularly to an information search method for searching for information related to a received image of a television broadcast.

  In recent years, with the spread of digital broadcasting, there is a service that provides information on people and products displayed in broadcast programs (including CM (Commercial Message) programs). In such a service, access information (for example, URL: Uniform Resource Locator) to related information is transmitted from a broadcasting station as a data broadcast together with a program video, and this is received by a receiver to receive a viewer (user ) Can access the above-mentioned related information.

  In such a conventional service, viewers cannot always access information desired by themselves because they cannot access information other than related information provided by the broadcasting station. In order for a broadcasting station to respond to such a user request, a huge number of related information and access information must be prepared in advance.

  Here, referring to Patent Document 1, an information search technique for easily extracting information related to an image is disclosed. This technique is as follows. An image search engine for managing image feature data and keywords related to the image in association with each other is provided, and a user retrieves image data for searching related information from an information terminal such as a personal computer (PC) via a network. And upload it to the search engine.

  The image search engine extracts feature data from the image data obtained via the network, identifies an image having the same data as the extracted feature data from the database, and relates to the identified image data. A keyword is extracted, and the extracted keyword is transmitted to a keyword search engine to obtain image related information (including URL).

JP 2002-297648 A

  In the service of providing information related to persons and products shown in broadcast programs including CM programs and TV shopping programs, as described above, viewers have access to information other than related information provided by broadcast stations. In order to respond to the viewer's request, it is necessary for the broadcasting station to prepare a huge number of related information and access information in advance. There is a drawback of becoming.

  In the technique of Patent Document 1, when the user wants related information on a person or product desired by the user, data recorded on an optical reading device such as a scanner or a digital camera, or further on a recording medium such as a CD-ROM. Therefore, it is necessary to capture the image data of the person or product into an information terminal such as a PC and transmit it to the search engine. Therefore, there is a problem that the operation of taking in data by the user is troublesome and that it is not possible to cope with a broadcast program.

  An object of the present invention is to provide an information search system and method, and an information processing terminal capable of very easily obtaining related information from websites on the Internet in addition to information prepared in advance by a broadcasting station. .

  An information search system according to the present invention includes a broadcast receiver having a receiving means for receiving a television broadcast, an extracting means for extracting a feature image from the received video, a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image in advance. An image search server having a stored database and means for determining a keyword by comparing the feature image transmitted from the broadcast receiver with the sample image, and associated with the keyword determined by the image search server And a search engine for searching for information to be performed.

  An information search method according to the present invention includes a broadcast receiver having a function of extracting a feature image from a received image of a television broadcast, an image search server having a database in which a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image are stored in advance. An information search method in an information search system in which a search engine having a function of searching for information related to a keyword using a keyword is connected to each other via a network, wherein the broadcast receiver And a step of extracting a feature image from the received video, and the image search server compares the feature image transmitted from the broadcast receiver with the sample image of the database. And determining the keyword, and the search engine In down, characterized in that it comprises the step of retrieving information related to the keywords determined by the image search server.

  A broadcast receiver according to the present invention includes a broadcast receiver that receives a television broadcast, a database that stores a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image in advance, and an image search server that determines a keyword of the database. A broadcast receiver in an information search system in which a search engine for searching for information related to the keyword using the keyword is connected to each other via a network, receiving means for receiving a television broadcast; Extraction means for extracting a feature image from the received video, and means for transmitting the feature image to the image search server for comparison with the sample image for determining the keyword.

  According to the present invention, there is an effect that a viewer can widely obtain related information in addition to information prepared in advance by a broadcasting station. For example, it is possible to quickly and easily search related information on a product desired by a viewer, such as a person who does not know the name (search keyword), or a CM or TV shopping program. On the side, it is possible to greatly reduce the work and costs related to the preparation of related information.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic block diagram of an information search system according to this embodiment. Referring to FIG. 1, a broadcast receiver 100, an image search server 200, a search site 300, and a network (Internet) 400 connecting them are configured.

  The broadcast receiver 100 is a stationary television receiver or a one-seg compatible mobile terminal (mobile phone), and the search site 300 can use an existing search engine. Specific examples of the broadcast receiver 100 and the image search server 200 are shown in FIG. Referring to FIG. 2, a broadcast receiver 100 includes a control unit (CPU) 10 that controls each unit of the apparatus, a display unit 11 that displays received video and various information, a numeric keypad, a direction key, a determination / cancel key, and the like. An operation unit 12 that is configured, a communication unit 13 that is an interface with the network 400, a storage unit 14 that stores a control program of the control unit 10 and the like, an image processing unit 17 that extracts a later-described feature image from the received video, And a broadcast receiving unit 20 for receiving and decoding radio waves of digital broadcasting. In addition, each part shall be connected with the signal wire | line.

  The storage unit 14 includes a memory 15 that stores a control program and the like, and a buffer memory 16 that temporarily stores a decoded video signal that is used when decoding a received wave. The image processing unit 17 also acquires an image acquisition unit 18 that acquires a received video (still image) from the buffer memory 16 at an arbitrary timing (viewer key operation timing), and a feature image that extracts a feature image from the acquired image. And an extraction unit 19.

  The image search server 200 includes a communication unit 21 that is an interface with the network 400, an information processing unit 22 that performs determination of feature images, search request processing to the search site 300, and the like. And a sample image / keyword database 23 in which search keywords corresponding to are stored. As a technique for searching for and determining a similar image based on an arbitrary image and outputting related information, a known technique can be used, and details thereof will be omitted.

  FIG. 3 shows an example of the received video, and FIG. 4 shows an example of the feature image extracted by the feature image extraction unit 19 of the broadcast receiver 100 based on the received video of FIG. The feature image extraction unit 19 in the present embodiment is a person's face or text portion from the received video, or an object that is not included in the received video but occupies a certain ratio to the entire video (generic name including person and product). Is recognized and extracted as an image, and a well-known technique can be used.

  FIG. 5 is an example of the sample image / keyword database 23 of the image search server 200. Assume that one or more search keywords are set for the sample image. In the example of FIG. 5, the name of the person is stored as a search keyword for the face portion of the person that is the sample image, and the manufacturer and vehicle type of the passenger car for the passenger car that is the sample image. The name is stored as a search keyword.

  The operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the flowchart of FIG. First, it is assumed that the broadcast receiver 100 is receiving a television broadcast (step S10). During reception, at the timing when the viewer presses a predetermined key of the operation unit 12 (step S11), the still image at that time is acquired from the buffer memory 16 by the image acquisition unit 18 from the received video (step S12). It is assumed that the acquired still image is substantially the same video that is displayed on the display unit 11 and viewed by the viewer. Next, a feature image is extracted from the acquired still image by the feature image extraction unit 19 (step S13) and transmitted to the image search server 200 via the communication unit 13 (step S14).

  The image search server 200 receives the feature image transmitted from the broadcast receiver 100 (step S15), and searches the sample image / keyword database 23 for a sample image that substantially matches the feature image using a similar image search technique. (Step S16). When the corresponding sample image is found (step S17), the search keyword stored corresponding to the sample image is read and transmitted to the search site 300 via the communication unit 21 (step S17). S18).

  If there is a text extracted from the feature image received in step S15, character data is extracted from the feature image by a character recognition technique, and this is used as a search keyword. Suppose that it is transmitted to 300.

  In the search site 300, the search keyword transmitted from the image search server 200 is received (step S19), information on the Internet 400 is searched using this keyword, and the URL of the hit information is acquired (step S19). S20). Then, the search result (such as an outline of URL and hit information) is returned to the image search server 200 (step S21). At this time, if there are a plurality of search keywords, the processes of steps S18 to S21 are repeated. Further, when there is a lot of hit information, a predetermined number of information may be returned from the top.

  In the image search server 200, the search keyword extracted from the database 23 and the search result received from the search site 300 are associated and returned to the broadcast receiver 100 (step S22). If no sample image that matches the feature image is found in step S17, “not applicable” is returned to the broadcast receiver 100 as a search result in step S22. Finally, the search result returned from the image search server 200 is received by the broadcast receiver 100 (step S23) and displayed on the display unit 11 (step S24).

  The above operation will be described with reference to the example of FIG. 3. From the image of FIG. 3, an image of the face portion of a person (assumed to be a talent) and a text image (for example, CM catch phrase) are extracted. Then, a search keyword indicating the name of the talent “Aida Koya” is extracted from the face image (see FIG. 5), and a copy “Natsuo's skin” is extracted from the text image. These two are searched at the search site 300 as search keywords, and information such as the corresponding URL is extracted from a vast amount of information on the Internet. Then, information such as URL is returned to the broadcast receiver 100 for each of the keywords “Aya ○ ya” and “Natsuo's skin”.

  In the above embodiment, a stationary television receiver or a one-segment mobile phone has been exemplified as the broadcast receiver 100. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and an electronic device, an information processing apparatus, and the like having a television broadcast reception function are used. The present invention can be widely applied. The operation flow shown in FIG. 6 can of course be configured such that the operation procedure is stored in advance in a memory such as a ROM as a program and is read and executed by a CPU (computer).

It is a system configuration figure of an embodiment of the invention. It is a functional block diagram of an embodiment of the invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a received image. It is a figure which shows the example of characteristic image extraction. It is a figure which shows the example of an image / keyword database. It is a flowchart which shows operation | movement of embodiment of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Control part 11 Display part 12 Operation part 13,21 Communication part 14 Storage part 15 Memory 16 Buffer memory 17 Image processing part 18 Image acquisition part 19 Feature image extraction part 20 Broadcast receiving part 22 Information processing part 23 Sample image / keyword database 100 Broadcast receiver 200 Image search server 300 Search site 400 Internet

Claims (15)

A broadcast receiver having a receiving means for receiving a television broadcast, and an extracting means for extracting a feature image from the received video;
An image search server comprising a database storing a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image in advance, and means for determining the keyword by comparing the feature image transmitted from the broadcast receiver with the sample image ,
A search engine for searching for information related to the keyword determined by the image search server;
An information retrieval system comprising:   The information search system according to claim 1, wherein the broadcast receiver, the image search server, and the search engine are connected to each other via the Internet.   The information search system according to claim 2, wherein the search engine is a search site for extracting information on the Internet.   The extraction unit extracts, as the feature image, a person's face or text portion included in the received video, or an object that occupies a certain ratio relative to the entire video. Information retrieval system described.   The information retrieval system according to claim 1, wherein the received video is a video at an operation timing of a viewer.   The information search system according to claim 1, wherein the broadcast receiver is a portable terminal. A broadcast receiver having a function of extracting a feature image from a received video of a television broadcast, an image search server having a database in which a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image are stored in advance, and a keyword used for the keyword An information search method in an information search system in which search engines having a function of searching for related information are connected to each other via a network,
In the broadcast receiver,
A reception step of receiving a television broadcast, and an extraction step of extracting a feature image from the received video,
In the image search server,
Comparing the feature image transmitted from the broadcast receiver with the sample image in the database to determine the keyword;
In the search engine,
An information search method comprising: searching for information related to the keyword determined by the image search server.   8. The information search method according to claim 7, wherein the network is the Internet, and the search engine is a search site for extracting information on the Internet.   9. The extraction step according to claim 7 or 8, wherein an object occupying a certain ratio or more with respect to a person's face or text portion included in the received video or a whole video is extracted as the feature image. Information retrieval method.   The information retrieval method according to claim 7, wherein the received video is a video at a viewer operation timing.   The information search method according to claim 7, wherein the broadcast receiver is a mobile terminal. A broadcast receiver for receiving a television broadcast, a database storing a sample image and a keyword corresponding to the sample image in advance, an image search server for determining a keyword of the database, and the keyword using the keyword A broadcast receiver in an information search system in which a search engine for searching for information related to is connected to each other via a network,
Receiving means for receiving a television broadcast;
Extracting means for extracting a feature image from the received video;
Means for transmitting the feature image to the image search server for comparison with the sample image for determining the keyword;   13. The broadcast receiving according to claim 12, wherein the extracting unit extracts, as the feature image, a person's face or text portion included in the received video, or an object occupying a certain ratio relative to the entire video. Machine.   The broadcast receiver according to claim 12 or 13, wherein the received video is a video at the time of an operation timing of a viewer.   The broadcast receiver according to claim 13, wherein the broadcast receiver is a portable terminal.

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